“The 2018 Medicare Trustees Report: Fiscal and Policy Challenges,” by Joseph Antos and Robert E. Moffit, AEI Economic Perspectives “Medicare’s financial outlook has deteriorated in the past year, according to the latest annual report by the program’s trustees. The Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund is projected to be depleted in 2026, three years earlier than estimated in last year’s report. That understates the policy challenge. Every year, the program relies more on general revenues to cover its costs. In total, Medicare will receive $324 billion in general revenues this year. That will more than double by 2026. Prompt action is
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“The Infamous Medicaid Look Back Rule… Why Does it Matter and What Does it Mean?,” by Casey Sauerwine, Marshall, Parker & Weber LLC “Engaging in trust planning or gifting more than five years before applying for Medicaid can be an effective strategy to protect assets from nursing home costs.  Gifting ahead of time can reduce the amount of available assets an individual will have at the time a Medicaid application is completed.  It is important to talk about trust planning and gifting with your elder law attorney if you are considering going down one of these paths.” LTC Comment (from
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“It’s Almost Like a Ghost Town.’ Most Nursing Homes Overstated Staffing for Years,” by Jordan Rao, New York Times “Most nursing homes had fewer nurses and caretaking staff than they had reported to the government for years, according to new federal data, bolstering the long-held suspicions of many families that staffing levels were often inadequate. The records for the first time reveal frequent and significant fluctuations in day-to-day staffing, with particularly large shortfalls on weekends. On the worst staffed days at an average facility, the new data show, on-duty personnel cared for nearly twice as many residents as they did
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“Gen X’s Deep Dive Into Financial Stress,” by Christy DeFrain, Advisor Magazine “Gen X (born between 1965 and 1979) is now the second largest generation in the workforce today, and this group of ‘latchkey children’ and ‘slacker’ young adults can be viewed as America’s neglected middle child. Bookended by two much written-about generations — the Baby Boomers ahead and the Millennials behind — this driving force behind today’s companies is easily overlooked despite the fact that they are the most committed and engaged at work. Truly, Gen Xers are the source of power that keeps a business together” LTC Comment (from
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“The truth behind long-term care insurance,” by Brendan Williams, McKnight’s LTC News “For some, long-term care insurance has long been viewed, despite all evidence to the contrary, as a nostrum to fix what ails long-term care.  There has been danger in that thinking, as policymakers parsimonious on Medicaid are happy to embrace magical thinking about alternative funding.  But it is worth asking whether it is long past time to put childish things aside, given what ails this insurance market.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Good guy (former Washington Health Care Association Exec.) but
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 “Life-LTC Hybrid Sales Soar: LIMRA,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “Use of life insurance-based long-term care (LTC) planning arrangements soared in 2017, according to data from LIMRA’s LIMRA Secure Retirement institute. New premiums from life-LTC hybrids increased 18% over 2017 levels, to $4.1 billion, institute analysts report. The number of policies sold increased 5%, to about 260,000. The average amount of new premium revenue per new policy sold increased about 12%, to about $16,000 per policy, according to calculations based on institute data.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Go hybrids! Life-LTC Hybrid Sales Soar:
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“U.S. Interest Payments to Equal Social Security Spending by 2048: CBO,” by Reade Pickert, ThinkAdvisor “The U.S. government is on track to pay creditors as much as retirees in three decades amid growing public debt and rising interest rates, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. The CBO projects net interest payments will exceed discretionary spending by 2045 and by 2048 match Social-Security outlays of 6.3 percent of gross domestic product. Social Security is currently the country’s largest federal program, the office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, said in its annual Long-Term Budget Outlook report.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses,
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“Where Do Older Americans Die?,” by Howard Gleckman “A fascinating and important new paper from Joan Teno and colleagues published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn (requires registration) also finds that those enrolled in traditional Medicare fee-for-service plans have different experiences from those who participate in Medicare Advantage (MA) managed care. MA enrollees are more likely than traditional Medicare beneficiaries to die at home, less likely to spend time in a hospital or nursing home in their last months of life, and less likely to be moved from nursing homes to hospitals and back as they near death.
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“An aspirin a day may keep dementia away, study finds,” by Elizabeth Leis Newman, McKnight’s LTC News “Low-dose aspirin may reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research. Previous studies have found a link between aspirin and reduced risk of the disease, but Rush University scientists took it a step further. Aspirin decreased amyloid plaque pathology in mice by stimulating the type of animal cells that can clear cellular debris, said Kalipada Pahan, Ph.D, the study’s senior author and lead research investigator.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): First headaches, then
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“Study rebuts idea that Medicare is wasted on the dying,” by James M. Berklan, McKnight’s LTC News “New findings from a team of academic researchers firmly contradict a widely held theory that Medicare futilely spends too much on seniors in their final year of life. Estimates place final-year-of-life spending at around 25% of all Medicare outlays. Investigators studied records of almost 6 million randomly selected individuals and found that a small portion of that was spent on beneficiaries expected to die within a year. … Researchers found that death is ‘highly unpredictable.’ Less than one in 10 people who die
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